


Saving the Surplus

by Kairyn



Series: The Children of Crowley [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: But I'm amused, Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Gen, Is this Crack treated seriously?, Original Character(s), Pre-Apocalypse, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Push Over Crowley, Soft Crowley (Good Omens), Threat to children, i can't tell, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22105225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kairyn/pseuds/Kairyn
Summary: Crowley is a demon. A horrible, vicious, demon. Who has a terrible, devious, habit. Of saving kids.Crowley rescues Baby B and takes him to his hidden away place where he has definitely not done this before, what are you talking about? He wouldnever...
Relationships: Crowley & Children
Series: The Children of Crowley [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1604167
Comments: 20
Kudos: 180





	Saving the Surplus

**Author's Note:**

> This might become a one-shot collection of Crowley being soft to kids and such and such but for now I'm just tickled by the idea of Crowley having a hidden away estate full of kids and the descendants of kids he's saved over the centuries.

Anthony J. Crowley leaned against a tree and waited. His Bentley was still sitting in front of the manor waiting for him, but he hadn't been able to make himself drive off just yet. His mind ran through plans and ruses, but nothing seemed to really fit with his current situation. He shouldn't even be _doing_ this. He really shouldn't. But... well, damn him twice over he couldn't just drive off and do _nothing_. 

You can't kill kids!

It was a HARD no. One of the very few rules that Crowley would not nor had he ever budged on. He'd always found ways around killing kids before. Even when it made his job a million times more complicated or his superiors quite aggravated at him. Always worth it in his mind.

Besides, nobody would notice. 

A newborn would automatically go to Heaven (as it hadn't even had the chance _to_ sin and all), but Heaven shouldn't even be expecting a baby to die tonight. They would have no reason to do so since this was all about the Antichrist, and that was definitely not Upstairs' department. All a Downstairs job. So, if the American's real baby... didn't die... well, who would even care?

Aside from Crowley himself.

Crowley sighed. So he was doing this again, was he? This was the Arc all over again. Or the Black Death. Or the Crusades. Or the head-chop happy revolution. Or- Crowley made a face. He might have discovered a personal pattern he needed to closer evaluate when he had further time.

Right now, he had other things to deal with. Namely not letting some newborn get killed for the _horrific_ bad luck of being born to the wrong people. Not even really that bad of people from what Crowley could tell. Well, they most definitely weren't the best either, but Crowley didn't think they were Antichrist levels of Evil by any means. Now that he thought about it... Wouldn't this have been better to hand off to actual Satanic cultists?

Crowley shook his head. Stop with the questions, he reminded himself. He would have thought -after the last time- he'd have learned to not ask so many. But no! Yet another personal pattern he needed to better evaluate.

He had a lot of those.

Crowley heard a door open, and a female voice happily humming to herself. Crowley tilted his head to the side to watch the nun with the pram leave the main manor building. "Right... we'll jussssst handle that," he hissed softly as scales erupted from around his yellow eyes to spread down his body that was shifting and melting down into one long sleek shape.

Crowley tasted the air and took a brief moment to reorient himself to the very different perspective and then started slithering through the grasses. The nun was still humming cheerfully as she pushed the baby pram across a gravel pad to a small outbuilding. Crowley hadn't taken his snake form in quite a while but immediately remembered why he loved it so much. Despite being hidden from the nun's sight under distant trees, he was already closing the gap between them, and she hadn't even noticed. He was sleek and powerful, fast and dangerous, and he _loved_ being so.

His forked tongue that once whispered _but why not?_ in Eve's ear flicked in the chilly night air. He could taste the damp fog that was hanging over the surrounding area and the engines of all the cars just around the corner of the building. The nun was wearing some sort of perfume that reminded him of citrus, which mixed in an oddly lovely way with the blood he could taste lingering around her. 

As Crowley was halfway across the pad, the nun undid a large lock on the door to the small shed and then disappeared into the dark. Crowley didn't hesitate to follow. Stairs were just beyond the entrance to the building, and the demon could hear the satanic nun singing a rather blasphemous (and somewhat humorous he had to admit) version of Ave Maria as she rustled about at the bottom of the stairs.

But then all of his senses picked out something that made his heart (that emphatically did not exist, shut up) stutter painfully. The creak of heavy metal hinges and the roar of a fire and the smell of smoke. **No.**

Crowley moved even as he heard a shriek that would haunt him for all of his endless miserable existence. Without conscious thought, he grabbed that core of his power -those shards he wasn't supposed to still have but somehow managed to tuck between his coils- and flung them out. The world screeched to a stop as the massive red and black serpent flew across the room. The ancient furnace's door was open, and the nun still had her arm flung out. 

Crowley ignored her and dove into the frozen flames and wrapped himself around the bundled up form, his scales easily smothering the flames that had already licked the boy. He was used to Hellfire. A little mortal furnace was barely a tickle.

Time lurched forward without Crowley actively concentrating on it in favor of the baby. The nun gasped in shock, and the boy was still crying, understandably so, he was hurt and terrified. Crowley's mass expanded and writhed, making sure that the baby's tender form wasn't harmed by himself or the heat. Crowley turned his head and hissed at the nun who was stumbling back from the door in abject horror. 

Crowley slithered out of the furnace, baby still cradled in his coils where he was safe. The nun was sputtering out some sort of explanation about orders, and their master and Crowley really couldn't have cared less. "You don't kill kidsssss." His eyes glowed fiery red, and the woman spasmed horribly. A white froth built along her lips as she continued to seize on the floor, her eyes glazing over with pain. It wasn't particularly fast as the venom that had miraculously appeared in her body seeped into her system, but Crowley knew slow was what she deserved. Crowley straightened as the woman finally fell limp and brought they baby, who was still wailing, up to his chest.

"Shh, it's alright," Crowley said. "I'm sorry I was a bit slow, but I'll fix you up. I promise." Crowley shouldn't. Healing wasn't really a demon thing to do, but he also technically shouldn't have saved the boy in the first place. But, really, he couldn't be expected to just stand there and do nothing.

The burns objectively weren't that bad, the baby hadn't even hit the coals of the furnace before Crowley caught him, but they were still much worse than Crowley was comfortable seeing on his chubby little limbs. Crowley shushed the baby absently as he sought out those fragments of power that somehow got missed on his burning free fall through the atmosphere. The baby quieted as the burns were soothed and healed. Crowley frowned at the scars that had been left behind; that shouldn't have happened. Healing should have left no marks behind at all, and yet... there they were. It must be because he only had bits and pieces of that sort of miracle left.

"Sorry, it's the best I can do," Crowley said as the boy snuffled into his jacket. "But, you're alive... which is a bit more than you would have been otherwise..." Crowley rubbed the baby's back and miracled it not burnt blanket to replace the original powder blue one. The new cover was black with red snakes and apples embroidered along the edges.

Crowley got up and stepped over the nun's body without a second glance. With a snap of his fingers, the furnace closed with a creak. Nobody was around as Crowley got into the Bentley and put the newborn in a miraculously formed car seat. Then he drove off. He had lingered too long as it was, and nobody needed to know he was doing this.

He only made it a few miles down the road before the full reality of the situation hit him. Especially that Antichrist bit. "Shit!" He had to do something about this. "Call Aziraphale," he commanded the Bluetooth only to be told that he couldn't because of course, he couldn't. He'd ruined the mobile networks for all of London. He'd been bragging about it literally just a few hours ago. "Gaaaahhh!" How did he constantly manage to get in his own way like that?!

After finding a payphone and getting in touch with the Angel, Crowley continued on his way. He did make a detour before he actually reached London, however. It would only add an hour or so to his trip. It wasn't far into the detour that Crowley became aware that the baby had fallen asleep.

The gated community had been established, oddly enough, the same year a certain bookshop in Soho was. That date was proudly displayed along with the name Garden Ridge on the wall separating the property from the road. The gate was a wrought iron number with deadly sharp spikes at the top and was framed by two angels on brick pillars. A line of letterboxes was right beside the gate and had golden numbers on each door with a little snake-shaped pull handle.

He'd debated the snakes heavily but hadn't been able to resist much like he hadn't been able to do so at his flat. It was such a dead give away but something deep inside just kept wanting his own symbol sprinkled throughout. Luckily nobody, not even Aziraphale, knew this place existed. He had done a _lot_ to hide it from Heaven and Hell. Layer after layer after layer of curses and blessings and wards all to keep notice off. About eighty years' worth. 

With a snap, the gates opened smoothly, and Crowley drove in. The drive was framed with mature trees that twisted away from the Bentley immediately, so there wasn't even the slightest possible risk of their branches touching the car. Crowley drove straight through two intersections to head directly to the largest house in the community. It was an old Victorian mansion that sprawled out in the largest plot with a perfectly manicured lawn and hedges. They wouldn't dare to be anything else.

The drive circled around a fountain displaying a winged serpent spitting water down several levels of basins. Another blatant tell that he hadn't been able to stop from including. Crowley parked in front of the steps of the manor house and picked up the entire car seat, which obediently flipped itself into a carrier. Crowley glared at a hedge as he passed, and it immediately straightened itself. "Disgraceful, all of you," Crowley snarled as he passed. He should make a point to spend a day here soon and ensure all the plants were behaving themselves. He didn't do it often enough, he didn't feel.

The manor was in immaculate condition. Luckily Crowley could just miracle money to keep up with the requirements of keeping the property looking beautiful. That and a little demonic influence here and there meant that Garden Ridge was essentially his world to do whatever he wanted within. Initially, it had been just the one manor house and a whole lot of land that had been a nice buffer between the house and any humans that might wander by. But now there were several large houses and a few smaller cottages sprinkled about along with the orchard that the humans that had lived here ancestrally had eventually planted. The best apple-producing trees in England, because they wouldn't dream of doing anything else on Crowley's land.

Another snap and the red door of the main house opened for him. "Sarah!" Crowley shouted as the door closed again. "Sarah, we need to talk!"

A woman in a fashionable dark suit with a cream shirt and long black hair twisted up into a knot at the back of her head came hurrying from further back in the house. "Nan, I wasn't expecting -oh!"

Crowley held the carrier out much like he had a basket earlier that evening. "New misery for you. Enjoy."

Sarah's eyes widened, and she took the car seat from Crowley to put down on a mahogany table in the center of the hall. "What happened?" Sarah asked as she undid the buckles to carefully pull the baby out. He didn't wake up, thankfully.

"A satanic nun was about to throw him into a furnace," Crowley said.

"I'm sorry _what_?" Sarah demanded, pulling the baby in closer.

Crowley did his best to shrug as if it weren't anything at all. "Satanic nuns. What can you expect? They switched him out for another baby, so something had to be done with him," Crowley explained as he watched Sarah gently rock the newborn.

"What're you going to name him?" Sarah asked.

Crowley tilted his head and thought about it for a moment. Mentally he flipped through all sorts of names, but one kept popping up. He probably shouldn't. But... gah, bless it all! He'd been resisting for centuries, and he just couldn't anymore. "Ezra," he said finally, making sure to keep his face neutral. "His name's Ezra."

"Ezra," Sarah said as she rocked him. "I wonder where he got that one from," she muttered with a sly look at Crowley.

"It's not his name, Sarah," Crowley said. It just sort of _sounded_ almost the same. "Stop asking."

Sarah pouted. "I want to know who the Angel is, Nan."

"No. I haven't told any of you in all these years. You really think I'll blurt it out now?" Crowley asked. Sarah still pouted, but Crowley soundly ignored it with the mastery of someone who'd done it for centuries against lots of different versions. "What're things like here?"

"Going fine," Sarah said. "Oh, but... Jordan wants you to meet this boy that-"

"No," Crowley said immediately. "Too young."

"Jordan's sixteen, Nan."

"And the rule is no dating until thirty," Crowley said. "You know that. Been that way for hundreds of years. Can't do it. Just can't. Thirty's the best I can handle, sorry." He wasn't remotely sorry.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "I'm thirty-three and been married eight years, Nan."

"Don't make me regret that," Crowley said. "I will make you a widow."

"No, you won't. You like Derek whether you admit it or not."

"Lies. Slander. I tolerate him only because you beg me. Nothing more. Arrogant, annoying, little bookworm."

Sarah sighed. "Of course, of course. You're a big tough demon and can't be nice to anyone. That's why you saved a baby from a horrible death and brought him here."

"He has great evil potential," Crowley defended.

"I'm sure. Jordan's boyfriend will be coming by Saturday. You should come to meet him," Sarah said.

"No, I'm too busy," Crowley said. "The Angel and I have things to do. Things are in motion."

"See you Saturday then," Sarah said as she gathered up the few baby things Crowley had magicked into existence and started for the grand staircase.

"I'm not coming," Crowley said firmly even as she started up the stairs.

"Yes, yes, so you said. We're having lunch at one!"

"Sarah!" 

She ignored him. The nerve. "They don't even know you, and they take after you, Angel," Crowley muttered. "That's hardly fair." He'd already given up on the 'Nan' thing. There were only so many generations he could have that argument with them, but they could at least _pretend_ he was marginally frightening. He had a reputation to maintain! 

With a huff of annoyance, Crowley turned and left the house. Like Heaven, was he going to show up Saturday to meet some _boy_. Honestly... what did they take him for? And if he showed up Saturday at two o'clock to hiss at some random boy, well, scaring humans was fun. Who could blame him?


End file.
